Pages

Friday, May 18, 2012

Short: Snackle

Most of this post I must credit to the wit of my friends. I have yet to decide whether I will protect their identities in this post (in case they don't want to be associated with me), or whether I will expose them outright to the accolades I think they deserve. I only wish I could convey everything that was said just how it was said, but since I am currently too lazy to develop my own ideas for posts, I am likely too lazy to do justice to the brilliant nonsense of others.

A couple weekends ago my husband and I were hosting a party for our son who had just been confirmed and received first communion. I was exhausted from overly ambitious preparations, and when the guests arrived, I was still making the frosting for my son's celebratory cake. Oh, it looked awful! It wasn't fluffy. No. Instead it grew thicker and more gelatinous as I beat it, in a plumber's putty sort of way, and I was afraid it might rise out of the bowl like the Blob from that ancient horror flick. Worse, it tasted like vanilla-laced, possibly fatal granular paste, and if a French pastry chef had been nearby to witness my utter defeat in this culinary endeavor, he would have beaten me silly with the paddle attachment of my stand mixer.

My friend Dana tried to console me.

"That's what happened to mine last weekend. It was like the sugar crystallized, and the more I tried, the worse it got. I just had to give up."

"She and my mom kept brainstorming ideas," said her husband Alex. "I tried to tell Dana we should just use it to patch the walls. It was the perfect texture."

"We could have," said Dana. "Like chocolate.....oh, what's that stuff..."

"Spackle?" I suggested brightly.

"Yes," said Dana. Then a light came into her eyes, and she added, "No, snackle!"

"Yes, I can see the infomercial," Alex piped in over our giggles. "Guys, do you have holes in your walls?...Are you hungry?"

"Stop!" I begged as I scraped my own snackle paste on my poor son's cake. "I'm too tired, too easy a target..." Then something occurred to me, and I became more serious. "Hey, Dana, do you think it could get guys to do their projects around the house quicker?"

"Maybe."

"Yeah, but we'd be alot more rotund," her husband added. He pretended to hold up an empty container as he mumbled sheepishly, "Honey, we're all out of Snackle again..."

At this point I surrendered wholeheartedly to a fit of hilarity. I could just picture men shuffling off to the master bath to do some work on a Saturday morning, grumbling about their honey-do list, but then they'd lock the door with a satisfied smile, scoop up a great glob of Snackle on their putty knives and lick their lips...